Engineering on Alton link is a winner

Once an inland South County resident, I occasionally felt trapped in Foothill Ranch. If I came in free from the south on surface streets, I had to pay money if I wanted to leave going north. One assumed that Portola Parkway in Foothill would hook up with Portola in Irvine. Whoops, dead end. OK, then surely Alton Parkway would connect with Alton in Irvine. Nope. Another dead end. It's either backtrack again and find Bake Parkway or get on the 241 toll road. Foot
hell Ranch.

So it was with personal delight I learned the American Society of Civil Engineers on Saturday gave its Orange County Project of the Year Award to RBF Engineering for building the 2.1-mile link of Alton between Irvine and Foothill Ranch.

I lived with the hassle only about a decade.
Gary L. Miller, project manager at RBF, spent about 28 years trying to get it built. There were engineering challenges to be sure, but it was financing and politics that really held it back.

“It was an enormous challenge to coordinate all the stakeholders,” Miller says. “We had to work with all the developers and landowners who had their own interests.”

Start with the big gorilla, the Navy, which owned part of the right-of-way. Plans came to a halt when Orange County went bankrupt in 1994 and couldn't afford to pay for the land. Then there was dealing with the county and the Musick Jail, which abuts the eastern side of Alton. RBF had to build a double concertina-wire fence for the jail, all the while ensuring that security wasn't breached.

Itook the coupe up to Foothill Ranch on Monday morning and drove that 2.1 mile stretch of asphalt. Over and over. If you look closely, on either side you see a bit of previously hidden O.C.

By piercing scrub brush, an old wash, ranch land, nursery concerns and the back end of a concrete factory, the road offers not only views of some native habitat but little pockets of human detritus that must have their own stories. Until somebody decides to prettify it, it's like going down an alley and getting to see the stuff in everybody's backyard.

Down at the southern end, near Irvine Boulevard, there is that lovely double-concertina wire fence glistening in the morning sun. We had a prison where I grew up, with federally certified bad-ass dudes. I don't know what people complain about. I can remember maybe two escapes in 20 years. I would advise
Mayor Voigts to consider some “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers” signs, though. Even if unnecessary, it's always a nice touch.

On the west side of Alton is what appears to be an IRWD pumping station, nearby, something you hardly ever get to see in South County anymore: a green single-wide house trailer circa 1949 – gutted like a Bronx tenement. See it now before they paint it beige.

Oh, there are also stumps from a partially felled eucalyptus windbreak, old piles of compost, decrepit farm equipment, old irrigation pipe – the kind of environment that says nothing so much as
lizard hunt.

There's also stuff not readily apparent for which props should go to RBF. The, uh, engineering, for example. RBF had to create a wildlife corridor so critters can move between the foothills and the Great Park. It had to build a six-lane thoroughfare around two threatened species of birds or recreate their habitat. It had to deal with flood-control issues that arose because Alton goes through the Borrego Canyon Wash. It had to dodge the main pipe that brings potable water to much of South County.

The road is supposed to accommodate 50,000 drivers a day, most of whom will be taken off congested Bake Parkway. I wondered whether it also has resulted in fewer people taking the toll road. TCA numbers show that for the first 18 weeks after the route was opened in July, traffic at the three closest toll road entrances to Alton Parkway dropped to 81,413 a week from 88,437 for the same period the previous year – a dip of about 8 percent.

However,
Lori Olin of the Transportation Corridor Agencies cautions this period also coincided with a rate increase of up to 25 cents per ride. The staff is still weighing what the drop in ridership really means.

I'll save the bottom line for the bottom line. Alton came in at $28 million, $15 million under budget.

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